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JOHN HEYWOOD. Died 1565.

THE DRAMA.1

THE naine of John Heywood introduces us at once to that department of Literature, in which the English have excelled all the other nations of the world-the Drama. It is impossible to fix any precise date for the origin of the English Drama. In tracing its history, however, we must make four divisions the Miracle Plays-the Moral Plays-the Interludes-and the Legitimate Drama.

THE MIRACLE PLAYS. It would appear that, at the dawn of modern civilization, most countries of Europe possessed a rude kind of theatrical enter tainment, consisting of the principal supernatural events of the Old and New Testaments, and of the history of the saints; whence they were called Miracles, or Miracle Plays. Some of their subjects were The Creation-The Fall of Man-The Flood-Abraham's Sacrifice-The Birth of Christ-His Baptism, &c. These plays were acted by the clergy, and were under their im mediate management, for they maintained that they were favorable to the cause of religion. On the contrary, the language and the representations of these plays were indecorous and profane in the highest degree: and what must have been the state of society, when ecclesiastics patronised such scenes of blasphemy and pollution! Let us hear no more about "the good old times," for "times" were doubtless far worse then than now.

MORAL PLATS. The next step in the progress of the Drama was the Moral Play. The Moral Plays were dramas of which the characters were chiefly allegorical or abstract. They were certainly a great advance upon the Miracles, as they endeavored to convey sound moral lessons, and at the same time gave occasion to some poetical and dramatic ingenuity, in imaging forth the characters, and assigning appropriate speeches to each. The only scriptural character retained in them, was the Devil. He was rendered as grotesque and hideous as possible by the mask and dress he wore. We learn that his exterior was shaggy and hairy, one of the characters mistaking him for a dancing bear. That he had a tail, if it required proof, is evident from the circumstance, that in one play, the other chief character, called Vice, asks him for a piece of it to make a fly-trap. Thus, what would otherwise have been quite a sober performance, was rendered no little entertaining.

1 We now enter upon the age of Queen Elizabeth, and I cannot but insert here the following fine emarks from the 18th vol. of the Edinburgh Review :-"We cannot resist the opportunity of here saying a word or two of a class of writers, whom we have long worshipped in secret with a sort of idolatrous veneration, and now find once more brought forward as candidates for public applause The era to which they belong, indeed, has always appeared to us by far the brightest in the history of English literature, or indeed of human intellect and capacity. There never was, anywhere, any thing like the sixty or seventy years that elapsed from the middle of Elizabeth's reign to the period of the Restoration. In point of real force and originality of genius, neither the age of Pericles, nor the age of Augustus, nor the times of Leo X., nor of Louis XIV., can come at all into comparison; for, in that short period, we shall find the names of almost all the very great men that this nation has ever produced,-the names of Shakspeare, and Bacon, and Spenser, and Sidney, and Hooker, and Taylor, and Barrow, and Raleigh, and Napier, and Milton, and Cudworth, and Hobbes, and many others;-men, all of them, not merely of great talents and accomplishments, but of vast compass and reach of understanding, and of minds truly creative and original;-not perfecting art by the delicacy of their taste, or digesting knowledge by the justness of their reasonings; but making vast and substantial additions to the materials upon which taste and reason must hereafter be employed, and enlarging, to an incredible and unparalleled extent, both the stores and the resources of the human faculties

INTERLUDES. The Interludes were something between the Moral Piayı and the modern Drama. The Moral Plays were frequent in the reign of Henry VI. (1422-1461.) In the reign of Henry VII. (1485-1509) they flourished in all their glory, and continued in force down to the latter half of the sixteenth century. But it was at length found that a real human being with a human name, was better calculated to awaken the sympathies, and keep alive the attention of an audience, and not less so to impress them with moral truths, than a being who only represented a notion of the mind. The substitution of these for the symbolical characters, gradually took place dur ing the earlier part of the sixteenth century, and before its close the English drama, in the writings of Shakspeare, reached its highest excellence.

One of the most successful writers of Interludes was John Heywood, or as he was commonly called, "Merry John Heywood." He was a native of London, but the year of his birth is unknown. He studied for some time at Oxford, but did not take his degree. He was of a social. festive genius, the favorite of Henry VIII, and afterwards of his daughter, Queen Mary, who were delighted with his dramatic representations. It is rather singular that the latter should have been so much pleased, as Heywood exposed, in terms of great severity, the vicious lives of the ecclesiastics. The play which per haps best illustrates the genius of Heywood, is that called the « FOUR P's," which is a dialogue between a Palmer, a Pardoner, a Poticary, and a Pedler. Four such knaves afforded so humorous a man as Heywood was, abundant materials for satire, and he has improved them to some advantage. The piece opens with the Palmer, who boasts of his peregrinations to the Holy Land, to Rome, to Santiago in Spain, and to a score of other shrines. This boasting was interrupted by the Pardoner, who tells him that he has been foclish to give himself so much trouble, when he might have obtained the object of his journey-the pardon of his sins-at home.

For at your door myself doth dwell,

Who could have saved your soul as well,
As all your wide wandering shall do,
Though ye went thrice to Jericho.

The Palmer will not hear his labors thus disparaged, and he thus exclaims to the impostor, the relic-vender:

Right seldom is it seen, or never,

That truth and Pardoners dwell together.

The Pardoner then rails at the folly of pilgrimages, and asserts in strong terms the virtues of his spiritual nostrums;

With small cost, and without any pain,

These pardons bring them to heaven plain.

The Poticary now speaks, and is resolved to have his share of the merit. Of what avail are all the wanderings of the one or the relics of the other, until the soul is separated from the body? And who sends so many into the

1 A species of farce, so called because they were played at the intervals of festivity.

* Every Palmer was a Pilgrim, but every Pilgrim was not a Palmer. The Pilgrim so called was one who had visited any foreign shore, and who on his return wore some badge peculiar to the place visited. Those, for instance, who visited the statue of St. James at Santiago (Spain) wore, on their return, the scallop-shell so frequent in that neighbourhood. But the term Palmer was applied to those only who had visited the holy places of Palestine, in token of which he bore in his hat a smal portion of the palm, which so much abounds in that region.

In early times the apothecary and physician were united in the same person.

other world as the apothecary? Except such as may happen to be hanged, (which, for any thing he knows, may be the fate of the Palmer and Pardoner,) who dies by any other help than that of the apothecary? As, therefore, it is he, he says, who fills heaven with inmates, who is so much entitled to the gratitude of mankind? The Pardoner is here indignant, and asks what is the benefit of dying, and what, consequently, the use of an apothecary, even should he kill a thousand a day, to men who are not in a state of grace? And what, retorts the other, would be the use of a thousand pardons round the neck, unless people died? The Poticary, who is the most sensible of the three, concludes that all of them are rogues, when the Pedler makes his appearance.

He, like his companions, commends his wares. How can there be any love without courtship? And how can women be won without such tempting gifts as are in his sack?

Who liveth in love and love would win,
Even at this pack he must begin.

He then displays his wares, and entreats them to buy: but the churchmen of that day were beggars, not buyers; and the Poticary is no less cunning. At length the Pardoner reverts to the subject of conversation when the Pedler entered, and, in order to draw out the opinion of the last comer, states the argument between himself and his two companions. The Pedler seems, at first, surprised that the profession of an apothecary is to kill men, and thinks the world may very well do without one; but the other assures him he is under a mistake; that the Poticary is the most useful, and for this notable reason, that when any man feels that his "conscience is ready," all he has to do is to send for the practitioner, who will at once despatch him.

Weary of their disputes for pre-eminence of merit and usefulness, the Pedler proposes that the other three shall strive for the mastery by lying, and that the greatest liar shall be recognised as head of the rest. The task he imposes on them cannot, he says, be a heavy one, for all are used to it. They are each to tell a tale. The Poticary commences, and the Pardoner follows. Their lies are deemed very respectable, but the Palmer is to be victorious, as he ends his tale in these words:

Yet have I seen many a mile,

And many a woman in the while;

And not one good city, town, or borough,
In Christendom but I have been thorough:
And this I would ye should understand,
I have seen women, five hundred thousand:
Yet in all places where I have been,
Of all the women that I have seen,
I never saw nor knew in my conscience,
Any one woman out of patience.

Nothing can exceed the surprise of the other three at this astounding asser tion, except the ingenuity with which they are made to express-unwillingt yet involuntarily-the Palmer's superiority in the "most ancient and notabl art of lying."

Poticary. By the mass, there's a great lie!

Pardoner. I never heard a greater-by our Lady!

Pedler.

A greater! nay, knew you any one so great?

And so ends the old interlude of "Merry John Heywood," of the "Four P's."

JOHN STILL,

AND HIS GAMMER GURTON'S NEEDLE.

To John Still, master of arts of Christ's College, Cambridge, and subse quently archdeacon of Sudbury, and lastly bishop of Bath and Wells, is aseribed the first genuine comedy in our language. It was first acted in 1566, and was printed in 1575, under the following title: "A ryght pithy, pleasanı, and merie Comedy, intytuled Gammer Gurton's Nedle; played on the stage not longe ago in Christe's Colledge, in Cambridge. Made by Mr. S., master of art." As the first comedy in our language, it would demand attention, irdependent of its merit. But it has a sort of merit in its way. It is written in rhyme. The humor is broad, familiar, and grotesque. The characters are sketched with a strong, though coarse outline, and are to the last consistently supported. Some of the language, however, and many of the incidents, are such as give us no very favorable view of the manners of the tines, when the most learned and polished of the land, the inmates of a university, could listen with delight to dialogue often tinctured with phrases of the lowest and grossest character, and that, too, written by a prelate. But, as a curiosity, we will give the outline of this old piece.

The characters consist of Diccon, a cunning wag, who lives on stolen bacon and mischief; Hodge, a mere bumpkin; Gammer Gurton, and Dame Chat, two brawling old wives; Mas Doctor Rat, an intermeddling priest, who would rather run the risk of a broken head than lose a tithe-pig; and Gib, the cat. The plot turns upon the loss of the Gammer's only needle,

A little thing with an hole in the end, as bright as any siller,
Small, long, sharp at the point, and straight as any pillar.

The disaster happens while the dame is mending an article of clothing of her man Hodge. In the midst of the operation, Gib, the cat, who is no unimportant personage in the play, disturbs the Gammer's serenity by making a furtive attempt on a pan of milk. The Gammer, in a passion, throws the before-mentioned article of apparel at Gib, and that valuable instrument of female economy is most unhappily lost. After a fruitless search in all ima ginable places, Diccon, the bedlam, seeing that this affair would afford some sport, straightway hies him to Dame Chat, and tells her how Gammer Gurton has accused her of stealing her poultry. He next applies to the Gammer, and vows he saw Dame Chat pick up the needle at the Gammer's door. This brings the two old ladies together. The one accuses the other of stealing her goods, and from words they soon proceed to blows, in which Dame Chat comes off victorious. In this extremity the Gammer applies for relief to the curate, Doctor Rat. Here again Diccon interposes, and persuades the learned ecclesiastic to creep in the silent hour of night into Dame Chat's house, when he will see her at work with the aforesaid needle. Meanwhile Diccon gives Dame Chat notice that Hodge will that night pay an evil-inten. tioned visitation to her poultry. The dame accordingly prepares for his reception, and instead of the needle, the doctor meets with a door-bar, wielded by the masculine hand of the Dame, (who conceives it to be Hodge,) to the no small detriment of the said Doctor's skull. To the baily Gammer Gurton has now recourse; when, after a long argument, the author of the mischief is discovered, and enjoined a certain ceremony by way of expiation; and as a

preliminary step, gives Hodge a smart thump on a part of his person, that, to the recipient's great discomfiture, leads to the detection of the invaluable needle, which it seems had been securely lodged in that aforementioned article of clothing on which the Gammer had been at work.

Hodge's preparation for the pursuit of the fugitive needle, and his attemp to elicit a friendly spark from Gib's eyes to help him to light his candle, à described with great humor.

The Gammer's boy says:

-Gammer, if ye will laugh, look in but at the door,
And see how Hodge lieth tombling and tossing amids the floor,
Raking there, some fire to find among the ashes dead,
Where there is not one spark so big as a pin's head:

At last in a dark corner two sparks he thought he sees,
Which were indeed nought else, but Gib our cat's two eyes.
Puff, quod Hodge, thinking thereby to have fire without doubt;
With that Gib shut her two eyes, and so the fire went out;
And by and by them opened, even as they were before,
With that the sparks appeared even as they had done of yore;
And ever as Hodge there blew the fire as he did think,
Gib, as she felt the blast, straightway began to wink;
Till Hodge fell to swearing, as came best to his turn,
The fire was sure bewitcht, and therefore would not burn:
At last, Gib up the stairs among the old posts and pins,

And Hodge he hied him after, till broke were both his shins.
And so ends the humorous old comedy of Gammer Gurton's Needle.

ROGER ASCHAM. 1515-1568.

THE name of Roger Ascham deservedly ranks high in English literature, He was born in 1515, and took his degree at the University of Cambridge at the age of nineteen. That he was pre-eminently skilled in the Greek language, is evident from the fact, that a few years after he left the University he was invited by Sir John Cheke to become preceptor of the learned languages to Elizabeth; which office he discharged for two years with great credit and satisfaction to himself, as well as to his illustrious pupil. Soon after this, he went abroad, and remained about three years in Germany. On his return he was selected to fi. the office of Latin secretary to Edward VI., but on the death of the king he retired to the University. On the accession of Elizabeth he was immediately distinguished, and read with the queen, some hours every day,

1 "Ascham entered Cambridge at a time when the last great revolution of the intellectual world was filling every academical mind with ardor or anxiety. The destruction of the Constantinopolitan empire, (1453,) had driven the Greeks with their language into the interior parts of Europe, the art of printing had made the books easily attainable, and Greek now began to be taught in England. The doctrines of Luther had already filled all the nations of the Romish communion with controversy and dissension. New studies of literature, and new tenets of religion, found employment for all who were desirous of truth, or ambitious of fame. Learning was at that time prosecuted with that eagerness and perseverance which in this age of indifference and dissipation it is not easy to conceive. To teael., or to learn, was at once the business and the pleasure of academical life; and an emulation of study was raised by Cheke and Smith, to which even the present age perhaps owes many advantages, without remembering or knowing its benefactors." Read-Johnson's "Life of Ascham." xii. 30, of Murphy's edition.

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